Churches Bill adopted

Baboki Kayawe | Thursday March 26, 2015 18:03

 

Justifying the reduction of members needed to form a religious organisation, Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Edwin Batshu said suggestions that the number was too high motivated this decision.

“The motivation is from the debate that the threshold 250 was too high, hence this reduction,” he said.

Francistown South MP, Wynter Mmolotsi who had proposed the number to be slashed to 20 members argued that many Batswana have pleaded that Parliament must reconsider the figure.

He said the number had the potential to impede those who genuinely wanted to form religious organisations, as well as discriminating against lowly subscribed religions in the country. 

Moreover, he added the law would inhibit the growth of other denominations as they are yet to be fully understood by the citizenry.

“It now becomes discrimination of religion looking at religions such as Islam that would want to teach people who don’t understand them, but this law will only ensure that Christianity remains the popular religion,” he said. 

The reduction of persons needed for religious societies was not the only amendment stitched into the Bill, before it passed.

Under the new dispensation, Batshu will be responsible for the appointment of the chairperson of an Advisory and Arbitration Council, whose mandate will be to provide expertise in matters related to societies.

Moreover, penalties for those who join illegal societies have been revised.

“Any person who knowingly is or acts as a member of an illegal society shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding six months, or to both,” the revised document reads.  Twenty-one (21) legislators voted for the Bill, while 10 were against it’s passing. One member abstained from the decisive poll that ended the heated and dramatic exchanges that enveloped its discussion.

In an interview with a staunch opponent of the Bill, Ignatius Moswaane of Francistown West said the Bill missed on a number of critical things that would enable it to serve its purported function. “It has missed on important things that could deal with fraudulent churches and pastors, and in the process it is going to disadvantage genuine worshippers,” he said.

“When the calling of God comes it doesn’t come to the whole nation, it comes to one man.  “So, it’s totally impossible for a preacher to convene people and preach to them, and ultimately convert them because this law is against ‘illegal worshipping’,” he said.

He said government needed to address underlying economic issues because poor people were especially most vulnerable to religious fraudsters, while they hoped for blessings and prosperity.  “This law is going to make the government unpopular because what we see on the ground is that many churches have failed to legally register when the minimum requirement was 10 people.  ‘Now with the 150 number a lot of illegal worshippers are going to surface,” he said. The amendment was necessitated by the mushrooming of churches, particularly under foreign leaders who have appeared to be “economic missionaries”, attracted by the country’s economic status, according to Batshu. 

“Splinter churches that have emerged influenced by struggles for leadership positions and control of church assets and finances influenced the amendment of the Act,” Batshu had said.  The lack of legal provision for mediation and reconciliation of church disputes is yet among other reasons that called for the proposed requirements for societies.

Batshu revealed that to date, 18 unresolved church disputes dating as far back as 1986 existed.